Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Don't think so - they certainly give a decent chunk of cash to the big labels, and apparently independent artists get somewhat screwed in comparison to the big guys (I wouldn't be especially surprised if the RIAA members are getting paid even for non-RIAA song plays), but as far as I'm aware they're an independent company.

This is an excellent point! Add that to the mickey-mouse act, and the desire to make it impossible to share culture freely to generations is being squashed, and the presumption of the grandparent, to presume it's a non issue because of some small, non-legally-binding voluntary participation, completely misses the point that DRM will be a recurring problem for the rest of human discourse. Not 10 years, or 20, but for the rest of our future we will have to be wary of those that would deny information, for in

In the case of music he is probably talking about the legal DRM bought by treasonous bribery that says you own NOTHING if it is digital, you are merely paying full price for a non transferable license that can be revoked at the whim of any record label at any time.

When the simple fact that Walt Disney has been dead for longer than many here have been alive, yet his works will continue to be protected forever (Because that was Valenti's whole plan, to make copyrights "forever minus a single day") then it doe

The "criticism" section of the wikipedia article divulges some likely income streams they had. e.g. last year when they bundled the ask.com toolbar and

Prior to April 2004, the free version of LimeWire was distributed with a bundled program called LimeShop (a variant of TopMoxie), which was spyware. Among other things, LimeShop monitored online purchases in order to redirect sales commissions to Lime Wire LLC. Uninstallation of LimeWire would not remove LimeShop.

I'm wondering where the hell Limewire got $100m in the first place? What part of their model made them that kind of money?

Apparently, because it was a subscription service:

records show the privately owned company generated $26 million in revenue in 2006 and sales climbed dramatically after that. During most of Lime Wire's 10-year history, Gorton was chairman, CEO, and only board member

They also claim he's got over $100M in an IRA account.

I never used it, so I have no idea of what the revenue source was (ads

Limewire is owned by the Lime Group, which also owns hedge funds and other companies that worth billions of dollars. This is one of the reason RIAA went after Limewire, because the potential payout is huge. The $100m will be paid by Lime Group.

I like small artists and I buy directly from the ones I know, but sometimes I open my wallet for mainstream artists. Do you seriously imagine that even a statistically significant number of people care about the RIAA, much less will actually alter their behavior to try and destroy them?

I'm no fan of the RIAA suing little old ladies and twelve-year-olds, but all the profess musicians I know are not OK with people getting their music for free and are quite comfortable having the RIAA or anyone else go after the people who are downloading it without paying for it. What they care about, and what I'm happy to oblige them on, is cutting out the increasingly unnecessary middlemen and providing a direct line of purchase to the artist.

When I was in college and downloading music was new, I (and everybody I knew) did it. Then we grew up and got jobs (well, most of us got jobs) and realized that it was, in fact, getting something for nothing, and that no matter how many window/front door/car analogies you make, that is usually ripping somebody else off, even if you don't call it 'stealing.'

The fruits of other people's labors has a price - whether or not you feel like paying it. But to answer your inane question, yes, just about everybody buys music these days.

A complete song, created entirely by one person, should be worth maybe two weeks of pay at 30 dollars per hour. If they need other people playing instruments, it should come out of that money. If you're spending more effort or money than can be recouped by those numbers, and there is no orchestra involved, you're doing something wrong.

The vast majority of expense that goes into making music goes to instruments, studio time. These costs should not exist. Cheap instruments exist, and sound fine. Plug them in

Sorry, but nearly everyone is downloading music for free these days. Hang around in a 5th grade schoolyard and you will hear them talking about the music they downloaded, not the music they bought.

Very few people "woke up" about getting something for nothing and it being somehow wrong. Most of the people I know are very happy about getting something for nothing - one less thing in their lives that costs money. A lot of people seem to feel that it goes along with paying for access to the Internet - free m

That's BULLSHIT. You're hocking ring tones to children on locked down phones. THAT'S who you're cheering for. There is no damned reason a song deserves money when you get right down to it and it's draining money from things that would actually help the world:

it's so easily duplicated,
it's not a precious resource (there are decades of music, that the RIAA is obscuring)
it's easily created from scratch

You're saying some arbitrary imaginary dopamine rush needs to be protected with the same vigor as a piece of food that can actually feed and sustain life... oh wait, "stealing" music will get you MORE trouble then *actually* stealing food.

I like small artists and I buy directly from the ones I know, but sometimes I open my wallet for mainstream artists. Do you seriously imagine that even a statistically significant number of people care about the RIAA, much less will actually alter their behavior to try and destroy them?

I'm no fan of the RIAA suing little old ladies and twelve-year-olds, but all the profess musicians I know are n

Of course there is a price. I'm just saying I don't agree with the price as it currently is and so I refuse to purchase it. There is no analogy there, just logic.

I don't need new music, I am not an illogical consumer who has to buy the very next album when it comes out. A audio CD is a digital recording, it makes no difference if you buy a secondhand copy or get it passed down to you. The music is still the same. If you must have your 'mainstream music' when it comes out, fair e

You don't understand it? It's not a dilemma.If you want new mainstream music, fair enough but don't kid yourself you're actually helping the artist which is what the OP was saying that musicians need to be supported but by buying new music owned by the media labels, you're helping nobody.

It's quite simple. The OP said that everything had a price and music has a price to produce it. That is true enough. However in case you have not noticed, an artist rarely makes an income based on sales, They often have a c

It's called voting with your wallet. I don't agree with the price of the music, especially given that none of it goes to the artist. It funds RIAA and the execs with big cars. So I don't buy it or listen to it.

If I really want it, I'll buy it secondhand. In your analogy, it's more like me deciding not to work there and work at a competitor:-)

Most of the RIAA lawsuits have been net losses, so their actions have if anything cost artists money and appear to have done very little to stop downloading, and musicians generally don't make money past their advance off of records anyway.

Thank you. People often say that the music industry needs a new business model. I usually roll my eyes at that, but if their business model is "pay lawyers $64m to earn $2m", then I definitely agree they need to adopt a business model with fewer lawyers.

Your lack of understanding of reality in 2011 is atrocious. There aren't many people who haven't heard of what jackasses the RIAA/MPAA are in this year. They have done more to incite sharing of movies, music, etc than anyone else could do in a lifetime. They should pa

Although my local library (which is actually rather small) has a fairly good size shelf of CD's. Maybe not the best selection but there was some stuff worth borrowing for an afternoon. And assuming the discs are not too scratched up, there is the benefit of lossless if so desired.

Yeah, it costs nothing. Because of course the songwriter worked for free, the musicians worked for free, any support people (management, etc) worked for free, all the people involved were housed and fed for free, the building they recorded in was built and maintained for free, all the equipment (instruments and recording) was free, the utilities for the building were provided for free, the product was marketed for free, the hosting for distribution was provided for free, there were no taxes paid on any of

those costs have zero to do with the cost of distribution. Artists don't even get their fair share back from the RIAA, so acting like tehy have a fair price is a misnomer.

The costs of creating the music are ZERO. It is creativity. The support to create music these days costs around $1000 maximum. I can record a high quality record in my basement at an equivalent quality to what people pay for instruments.

Wake up ya shill. These costs are not astronomical or magically expensive anymore.

Nice post, but I think there is something you don't realize... Most people, when given the opportunity to get something for nothing, will do just that. If they know they can get away with it without consequences, they will steal it.

I don't know anyone that buys music except those people that are not aware they can get it for free.

Downloaders are not the only ones "getting something for nothing". Content creators are granted rights far beyond those granted by nature to control copies of their works even after they distribute them. All of the laws and government-operated judicial system necessary to make this work are provided at the expense of tax-payers. In exchange for these expensive services, and for the people respecting their "rights", the content belongs to the public after a limited time...except that those lyin' cheatin' thieves have stolen all the value from the rightful owners by lobbying to redefine "limited time" to extend so long that the public never gets anything worth value. Well, as a tax-paying citizen, I'm tired of being ripped off. I want all that content that rightfully belongs to the public domain! That's why we must fight the RIAA--they are exactly what they call us--pirates and thieves.

I absolutely agree that copyright should be limited far more than it is now. But that's a problem with our political system (one of many) - declaring that you don't agree with the law is well and good but it doesn't justify taking music you haven't paid for. Because you're exactly right - that would make us no better than them.

Any profit-making organization is going to do what it can to legally extend its profits as long as possible. It's rare to find one that will willingly sacrifice them to be 'good' (as

You said it. Compared to the magnitude of the rip off that is copyright term extension, piracy is trivial. Copyright in its original form was a good deal for everyone, but that deal is now very much broken. Act according to your own conscience, keeping in mind that artists have to eat, and few are raking in what the top names get.

RIAA *is* the middleman. And they're the ones indiscriminately attacking people without sufficient proof of their guilt. Copyright infringement is a crime, and it's immoral, true. But offers for cash settlements are nothing short of blackmail and extortion.

Regardless of anything else they do for an artist, the facts that matter to me as a consumer are: The RIAA believes that it deserves to make money [dailykos.com] on non-RIAA-members' music, they list non-member [fatwreck.com] (seventh question down) labels as members, legally attack i

And they're the ones indiscriminately attacking people without sufficient proof of their guilt.

Which is why they've lost most of their cases and flushed a lot of money down the toilet in the process.

But offers for cash settlements are nothing short of blackmail and extortion.

No, they're offers for cash settlements. It's very nice to think about the poor little old lady who has no idea what an mp3 is getting one of these and feeling bad for her, and yeah, in those cases, send 'em packing. But it's not 'doing business with the mob,' because the mob came by whether or not you'd done anything wrong for a protection racket. These guys are coming by because they have evidence that

with a nearly infinite supply, the value of the product reaches near zero.

You flunk Economics 101. The value of the product is what the market will pay for it. You're talking about the cost to produce it, specifically the marginal cost to sell one extra album. That is indeed near zero, but that doesn't make the production cost zero - only the marginal cost, and that's got only a very small amount to do with the retail price.

1. copyright is way too long and currently goes against its original intents of going to the public domain in a timely fashion. 5-20 years is more than sufficient. it was never meant to create dynasties or let someone milk one work for their entire life.

They don't believe that this is true. Why would they argue in favor of this? It's not in their interests to do so. Do unions come forward and say 'wow, our pe

After production costs are recouped is when they make the profit, which is why most people get out of bed in the morning. If the only interest is to recoup production costs, the quality of the entire market will go down the toilet, because there is no reward for doing an excellent job - if you pay for the endeavor, you're done, right?

The point of selling music, of selling anything, is to sell a whole heck of a lot of it. The notion that it's somehow wrong or evil to continue selling it after you've recouped

The market does adjust to supply and demand by lowering prices. Prices came down when music went digital and they go down even further after an album has been out for a while -- just like the scenario you're describing. But this is market supply and demand, not piracy; one of the big questions about piracy is how many of these people would have otherwise bought the music legally if they couldn't pirate it (answer for most people I knew in school: not one of us, but that's not always going to hold up). Even

That's BULLSHIT. You're hocking ring tones to children on locked down phones. THAT'S who you're cheering for. There is no damned reason a song deserves money when you get right down to it and it's draining money from things that would actually help the world:

it's so easily duplicated,
it's not a precious resource (there are decades of music, that the RIAA is obscuring)
it's easily created from scratch
You're saying some arbitrary imaginary dopamine rush needs to be protect

The problem is, and always has been, studio time and advertising. Those are the only real services that a record label produces in a world with modern technology, but without them it's almost impossible for a band to go mainstream; they'll be forever stuck in a small genre or geographical niche. I think a solution to this would be to enourage all bands of any popularity level to identify a half dozen or so bands that are less well known than they are and offer their support to them. That support would ob

It's getting easier and easier to record music on a shoe-string budget, and it's getting easier to promote it yourself thanks to social networking and such. If the RIAA isn't obsolete already, it's getting there fast.

These days a recording studio isn't something that you need a big corporation for. Very decent studio equipment for recording rock-type music typically doesn't cost more than the instruments it records. The only thing that's really in short supply is mixing and production skill - and anyone who can write and play music can probably learn that too, it just takes time.

Yeah, and just yesterday I saw an ad for the "Paint like Van Gogh" online course.

Mixing and production skills are not something you just pick up in a week or two.

Actually...if you hire someone to teach you they can be. You need to learn the best practices and some tricks and that's about it. It is more like learning to be a good cook than another Van Gogh.

I know a guy who has been doing electronic music since the early 90's. He's a member of two internationally successful bands and he's the recording engineer / mixer / producer for both bands. He's been recording, mixing, and producing industrial and electronic music for about 15 years.

Yes, I do-- there are several songs on Pandora that I liked enough to purchase off of Amazon, and one or two not available on amazon that I bought from iTunes. Guess it makes me old fashioned, but I believe that the artists-- who willingly signed on to some of these labels-- should be compensated; and its not for me to decide whether they made the right or wrong decision in choosing a label. I support the artist, so I pay for their work.

If literally everyone only buys secondhand then the RIAA member companies go out of business and are replaced by some apparatus that it is not unconscionable to fund, so people can go back to buying new music. If not everyone gets in on the boycott, it deprives the RIAA of at least some money -- which is that much less money they have to lobby against your interests -- and there is still a supply of secondhand music from the people who don't have enough awareness or conscience to join the boycott.

If we all payed for our media, there would be no deficit. Revenue would increase as the big labels create new jobs. The millions of unemployed in the US would be hired to stand in studios, sticking their arms and legs out to act as human anacoustic paneling. Those of us with exceptional talent can try our hand at realtime vocal active noise cancellation. Hint: work on your latency...

Broken window fallacy plain and simple. The money that is not spent on media is instead spent on other things. Thus there would be no difference. The music industry as a whole is making more money than ever. Even the labels are making hefty billion dollar profits. Learn some economics.:)

So, the RIAA settled for $105 million after determining that Limewire helped people pirate "billions" of songs. Shouldn't that, then, set the value of "a" song that is shared? A conservative estimate of 2 billion songs for $105 mill is, what, about a nickel a song? Should use that value when determining damages against Jammie Thomas and anyone else.

JM convoluted O, of course, but I'm not the one settling for relative peanuts.

No, the 5% ($105 million) means that's what the RIAA agrees is Limewire's share of the responsibility. It's not outrageous to claim that the person who actually downloaded those songs is 95% responsible.

During his damages hearing last week, RIAA lawyers suggested his net worth was larger than that.
They noted he possessed $100 million in an IRA account. His Manhattan home is worth more than $4 million. In addition to Lime Wire, Gorton operates a hedge fund and a medical-software company. Gorton's lawyers claimed in court that he made little money from Lime Wire. Maybe, but records show the privately owned company generated $26 million in revenue in 2006 and sales climbed dramatically after that. During most of Lime Wire's 10-year history, Gorton was chairman, CEO, and only board member.

Disclaimer: I'm the submitter so I'm probably the only person that read the article which gives me an unfair advantage.

Doesn't matter what he's worth, American corporate law protects him from having to pay the company's debts. Look at Donald Trump. His company has gone bankrupt not once but three times (and he wants to run the country?). The only people he ever had to pay were the IRS.

This money get used to push internet censorship bills like COICA and Protect IP through congress, and into Obama's pocket in exchange for appointing their lawyers into powerful government regulatory positions. The RIAA has very little to do with music. It is an evil organization and currently one of the biggest threats freedom and privacy both in the US and around the globe.

>Where the settlement money will go is hard to tell. In similar cases in the past, the RIAA has split up big awards with the four member labels. How much of the money goes back to the artists is unclear

OH! CAN I MAKE A GUESS? HUH? CAN I? PLEASE? PLEASE LET ME TAKE A GUESS?

I acquired more music using Maxell cassette tapes than I ever did with any p2p software. In any given college dorm pre-internet era, you spent a good chunk of your available time taping floor-mate's records. After all, why else would you buy a 90 minute chromium oxide cassette if not to record two 43-minute LPs? On the equipment I used at the time, you couldn't tell the difference in quality, so why doesn't/didn't the RIAA go after Maxell, TDK, Memorex and the other manufacturers of high quality cassettes?

Limewire didn't kill the music industry. The music industry killed the music industry.

Precisely. I did the same thing when I was at university, plus of course I recorded songs off the radio prior to that.Like it or not, music listeners have always wanted to shift their music (I buy an album and record it to tape for the car etc) into the most convenient formats for their needs, and a certain amount has always been shared. Honestly I doubt i ever taped someone else's copy of an album that I would have bought otherwise. Buying music has never been a big thing for me. I think I have a total of